Portrait of Maria Portinari (c. 1470–72) is a small tempera and oil- on-wood painting by Hans Memling. It portrays Maria Maddalena Baroncelli, about whom very little is known. Around 14 years old, she is depicted shortly before her wedding to the Italian banker Tommaso Portinari, who was an intimate of Charles the Bold and manager of the Bruges branch of a bank controlled by Lorenzo de' Medici. Maria is dressed in the height of late 15th-century fashion, with an elaborate jewel-studded necklace and a long black hennin with a transparent veil. Her headdress is similar and necklace identical to those in her depiction in Hugo van der Goes's Portinari Altarpiece (c. 1475), a painting that may have been partly based on Memling's portrait. The panel is the right wing of a hinged devotional triptych; the lost center panel is recorded in 16th-century inventories as a Virgin and Child. Maria and Tommaso's portraits are hung alongside each other at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Maria_Portinari

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1760:

The chapel of the new Castellania Palace in Valletta, Malta, was consecrated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castellania_%28Valletta%29

1859:

Sponsored by Greek businessman Evangelos Zappas, the first modern revival of the Olympic Games took place in Athens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zappas_Olympics

1943:

The Holocaust: Heinrich Himmler ordered that Romanies were to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_genocide

1988:

The Soviet Buran spacecraft, a reusable vehicle built in response to NASA's Space Shuttle program, was launched, unmanned, on its only flight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_%28spacecraft%29

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

high roller: 1. (Canada, US, informal, gambling) A gambler who wagers large amounts of money, usually in a casino. 2. (Canada, US, informal) One who has a lot of money and lives luxuriously. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/high_roller

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Let none turn over books, or roam the stars in quest of God, who sees him not in man.   --Johann Kaspar Lavater https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Johann_Kaspar_Lavater